3 Reasons Why You’re an Awesome Parent
It’s Not About Being Perfect, but About Wanting to Be Awesome
I began this publication because I want to be an awesome parent. I always have, and I always will.
If you’re reading this, I’ll bet you’re pretty awesome too. In a moment, I’ll explain why.
A little about me. I have a mental health counseling master’s degree, and I am a parent to two wonderful children, one grown and one a tween. I have been happily married for over twenty years to my best friend, my husband.
All this might seem ideal, and I’ll have to admit, it’s pretty great. But before you think that I have no authority to speak about parents and their trials and tribulations, let me stop you there.
My childhood family was not ideal. There were many abusive and toxic patterns present in my childhood family interactions. I have spent exactly half my life working to recover from the damage from my childhood. All the skills and self-esteem I possess now, I had to learn to build from the ground up.
I am grateful for the family I built with my husband because they are pretty wonderful. They have put up with me and love me still. Thank goodness for big miracles!
School taught me a lot too. I use it now to write materials for bibliotherapy, which is basically written materials created to help people understand and manage their conditions.
I extended this experience to professional writing and editing mental health, parenting, and relationship articles. You can check out my professional work here, here, and here. (This will lead you to sites that are not part of Medium.)
Why We Are Awesome
So, why are we awesome parents? It doesn’t have to do with meeting an unrealistic ideal we have in our heads. Below are some reasons why we are awesome right now, at this very moment.
- We Wish to Be Awesome
We are awesome because we strive every day to be the best parent we can be. It may not always go exactly as we want it to, and we might mess up, but our hearts are in the right place. It shows we have the right attitude.
2. We Learn from Our Mistakes
We make an effort to improve. We are all born with a skill set, and we must learn to develop others. As we learn along the way, we might mess up.
That’s okay! We’re all human.
The actions we take afterwards define us, including how to repair the mistake, learn from it, and how to conduct ourselves in the future so we can stop making the same mistakes.
3. We Work on Self-improvement
We sometimes have tendencies that don’t work well with parenting. We might not know how to manage our stress. We might have trouble keeping our cool.
Blowing your top once in a while doesn’t mean you aren’t awesome!
It takes time to figure out how to manage our emotions. If you’re still working on it, still trying, still coming up with ways to improve your emotional responses, it means you are awesome!
I appreciate you joining me on this journey to awesomeness. I believe it’s never-ending, but it’s the most worthwhile pursuit. In becoming awesome parents, we learn to become healthier, happier people.
So, if you’ve had a rough day or feel downtrodden, we understand. We all have days like that, and because we are all so awesome, know that you are in good company with people who get it.
Now that you know you’re awesome because of your awesome intentions, I’ll be explaining parenting tactics and tools you can use every day to get to parenting awesomeness in 30 days.
A lot happens in a month. If you give yourself a chance to develop a new skill for 30 days, by the time a year has passed, you’ll be able to look back and see all of the progress you’ve made.
With that said, I will make a couple of promises to you. First, I will not say the word “awesome” a million times per post. :D Second, I will concentrate on sharing strategies that are simple to employ in your busy life.
You have taken on one of the hardest, most demanding jobs on the planet. Give yourself a pat on the back, put your feet up, have a cup of your favorite tea or coffee, and we’ll catch up with each other tomorrow.
